Parameter Injection Vulnerability in Confluence

Severity

Atlassian rates this vulnerability as critical, according to the scale published in Confluence Security. The scale allows us to rank a vulnerability as critical, high, moderate or low.

Risk Assessment

We have identified and fixed a flaw which would allow a malicious user (hacker) to inject their own values into a Confluence request by adding parameters to the URL string. This would allow a hacker to bypass Confluence's security checks and perform actions that they are not authorised to perform.

Risk Mitigation

To address the issue, you should upgrade Confluence as soon as possible or follow the patch instructions below. If you judge it necessary, you can block all untrusted IP addresses from accessing Confluence.

Vulnerability

A hacker can design a URL string containing parameters which perform specific actions on the Confluence server, bypassing Confluence's security checks. This is because Confluence does not adequately sanitise user input before applying it as an action on the server.

Exploiting this issue could allow an attacker to access or modify data and compromise the Confluence application.

The following Confluence versions are vulnerable: All versions from 1.3 to 2.9.1.

Fix

If you do not wish to upgrade to Confluence 2.9.2, a patch is available that will work with any affected version of Confluence. You can download and install the patch from on our JIRA site. For more information, please refer to CONF-13092.

XSS Vulnerability in Various Confluence Actions and Plugins

Severity

Atlassian rates these vulnerabilities as high, according to the scale published in Confluence Security. The scale allows us to rank a vulnerability as critical, high, moderate or low.

Risk Assessment

We have identified and fixed a number of security flaws which may affect Confluence instances in a public environment. The flaws are all XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerabilities in various Confluence actions. Each vulnerability potentially allows a malicious user (hacker) to embed their own JavaScript into a Confluence page.

The hacker might take advantage of the flaw to steal other users' session cookies or other credentials, by sending the credentials back to the hacker's own web server.

The hacker's text and script might be displayed to other people viewing the Confluence page. This is potentially damaging to your company's reputation.

You can read more about XSS attacks at cgisecurity, CERT and other places on the web.

Risk Mitigation

If you judge it necessary, you can disable public access (e.g. anonymous access and public signup) to your wiki until you have applied the necessary patch or upgrade. For even tighter control, you could restrict access to trusted groups.

Vulnerability

A hacker can inject their own JavaScript into the Confluence actions listed in the table below. Each of the actions is invoked when a user performs a specific function in Confluence, such as clicking a link or a button. The actions can also be invoked by simply entering the URL into the browser address bar. The rogue JavaScript will be executed when a user invokes the URL.

For more details please refer to the related JIRA issue, also shown in the table below.

Fix

If you do not wish to upgrade to Confluence 2.9.2, you can download and install the patches provided on our JIRA site. For more information, please refer to the specific JIRA issues shown in the table of vulnerabilities above.

Our thanks to Thomas Jaehnel of OPTIMAbit, who reported most of the XSS vulnerabilities listed above. We fully support the reporting of vulnerabilities and we appreciate it when people work with us to identify and solve the problem.

Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Confluence Watches

Severity

Atlassian rates this vulnerability as high, according to the scale published in Confluence Security. The scale allows us to rank a vulnerability as critical, high, moderate or low.

Risk Assessment

We have identified and fixed a flaw which would allow an unauthorised user to add a Confluence page to the list of pages they are watching, even if the user does not have permission to view that page. Under some circumstances, the unauthorised user may thus have access to information they are not authorised to see.

Risk Mitigation

This flaw does not allow the unauthorised user to update the page, but it may give the user access to information that they do not have permission to see.

Vulnerability

An unauthorised user can manipulate the HTTP request, so that it adds a watch to a page which the user does not have permission to view. The page then appears in the user's list of watched pages, displaying the page title and the corresponding space name. In this way, the user can bypass Confluence's permission checks and gain access to information they are not authorised to see.

The following Confluence versions are vulnerable: All versions from 1.0 to 2.9.1.

Privilege Escalation Vulnerability in Confluence Favourites

Severity

Atlassian rates this vulnerability as moderate, according to the scale published in Confluence Security. The scale allows us to rank a vulnerability as critical, high, moderate or low.

Risk Assessment

We have identified and fixed a flaw which would allow an unauthorised user to add a Confluence page to their list of favourites, even if the user does not have permission to view that page. Under some circumstances, the unauthorised user may thus have access to information they are not authorised to see.

Risk Mitigation

This flaw does not allow the unauthorised user to update the page, and it gives the user only very limited access to the information they do not have permission to see.

Vulnerability

An unauthorised user can manipulate the HTTP request, so that it marks as 'favourite' a page which the user does not have permission to view. The page is then added to the number of favourites for the user. The user cannot see the page title or content, but can see that the favourite count has been incremented.

The following Confluence versions are vulnerable: All versions from 1.0 to 2.9.1.